


Reunite

by shitstuck



Series: Head or Heart [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Decapitation, End of Act 6: [S] Collide, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6945379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shitstuck/pseuds/shitstuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The three of you are lined up very neatly, you suddenly notice. One clean slice and it’s over. </p><p>One clean slice.</p><p>You harden your face and stare at Dave. You see the moment of confusion, the moment of understanding, the moment of horror, and finally the moment he resigns himself to the task and lifts his sword.</p><p>He flies towards you, and you fleetingly have a thought you’ve never had before.</p><p>  <em>Please let the katana break.</em></p><p>Can be read independently from Unite. Contains spoilers if you're not caught up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunite

You’re fighting alongside your sort-of-clone (and the troll girl with the sharp smile) and it’s amazing. You feel alive, you feel powerful, you feel like a part of a whole. It’s not going the greatest, though. Your attacks are doing damage, yeah, but both of your adversaries remain alive. Still, it feels like you can stick it through and come out on top.

Until.

Lord Jack hits you in the face with his crowbar. Hard. You go down on your hands and knees, reeling, when he gets you in a headlock with the crowbar. You hardly get your sword up in time to stop him from choking you with that stupid juju.

But you’re holding out okay. His attack on you leaves Dave open, but there’s nobody for him to attack at the moment.

And then Robo Jack catches sight of Lord Jack, who is effectively weaponless, and leaves Terezi to put _him_ in a headlock with LJ’s huge staff. RJ pulls back, forcing LJ to pull back. 

Your katana may be unbreakable, but LJ’s fighting with a juju. A juju- _breaker._ It’s taking most of your strength to keep it away from your neck.

Your neck.

The three of you are lined up very neatly, you suddenly notice. One clean slice and it’s over. 

One clean slice.

You harden your face and stare at Dave. You see the moment of confusion, the moment of understanding, the moment of horror, and finally the moment he resigns himself to the task and lifts his sword.

He flies towards you, and you fleetingly have a thought you’ve never had before.

_Please let the katana break._

It breaks and you feel the slice (nice and fast and clean, quick as a guillotine—that rhymes, remember that) and the loss of sensation is a little too familiar for your taste.

The momentum has you staring at your feet, watching your body go limp for a heartbeat (but not yours) before he’s there, catching you and catching you and watching in horror with Terezi. His hands are warm on your face and it’s really not the most comfortable angle to be caught at, but it’s this or land callously on the ground again (like before, when he threw you to the side like garbage—no, not now) and your vision blurs as he somehow gets you all to the victory platform.

The last thing you see is Jane’s vague brownish figure before you're gone for real.

No extra Dirks. Out of lives.

Nothing 

left

 

The tick of a clock you feel like a heartbeat

**HEROIC**

no surprise there

 

but

cool blue light, refreshing

warmth at your throat, no—heat searing hot

heaving chest and—

You wake up coughing, Jane leaning over you, working her Life magic. It feels cool and refreshing, like swimming in something viscous and sweet. Your neck is vaguely sore but you're otherwise fine. The bright cyan light enveloping you fades away and you sit up.

Jane leans back. “Whoo, thank goodness! It’s good to see you, Dirk!” She seems mostly all right, if a litte shaken.

“Good to see you to, Janey.”

She smiles and stands up, probably to take care of someone else. You feel a presence behind you, and turn your head.

Dave puts his hand on your shoulder, relief plain on his face, and you crack a smile.

“Thanks,” you say.

He frowns. “For what?”

“You know, for catching my severed head. Last time I did that, it kinda… fell. Got dropped.”

His shades hide half of his face but the shocked disgust is apparent. His eyebrows shoot up into his hair. 

“You’ve—”

“I had to decapitate myself to enter the session. Roxy and I were four hundred years into the future, and when the miles came and she died, I had to kiss her back to life, but there would have been nobody to kiss me and even I could only dodge the miles for so long. So I sent my head to Jake.”

He physically jerks back. “What the _fuck?_ ”

“Told you I was bad for him,” you say drily. 

“Shit, no offense, but you weren’t kidding.”

You sigh. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t say anything, so for a moment you sit and watch the others interact. 

“I also wanted to say… sorry.”

“Hm? For what?”

“For making you cut off my head and then catch it and my body. I, uh, that is—it’s kind of a shitty thing to do. So I’m sorry about that.” 

He's silent. 

“Um. So I guess—” you start, preparing to stand up.

“Wait.” He swallows.

You sit back down.

“I guess I wanted to say… um, I'm glad it worked. I mean, obviously. But you know. Um.”

“I… yeah.” 

He breathes in sharply and throws his arms around you, and for a moment you freeze. A hug? Does not compute. You can’t remember what the appropriate course of action is, so there’s a terrifying moment of his face in your shoulder and your arms awkward in the air. But then you remember how to breathe and slowly lower your arms around his shoulders. 

You stay like that for a little while, until Jade teleports a big group of people in. How did they all end up in the same place? There’s Jake, but he was on LOMAX. Jade was fighting the Becs near the remains of Prospit. ARquiusprite is there too, and you have no idea where he originally was. You’ll probably ask one of them later. 

Both you and Dave perk up at the sight of the big group of people, but while you deflate, he’s practically bouncing. 

“Hey, I’m gonna—do you mind if I—”

“Go, dude.”

He gets up and you can see how much effort it’s taking not to actually run over there, but he controls his stride. One of the trolls sees him and nearly tackles him and you let out a little chuckle. He’s doing better than you there, you’ll give him that.

You stand up yourself and meander over, pausing to say hi to Roxy, Jane, and Callie. They all hug you, and Roxy whispers “Go get him, tiger,” in your ear. 

“Are you sure I should? I mean…”

She leans back and laughs, and shoves you away with a smack on the ass.

“Stop procrastinating, Di-Stri. _Do it!_ ” And of course she makes the Shia LaBeouf pose and you want to hit her for bringing up ancient memes, but you know she has a point so you turn around and nearly bump into him.

“Oh, uh—sorry.” Your face must be redder than the big house-shaped thing on the victory platform. Great. 

“No worries, Dirk. How’d it go?” 

“Pretty well. At first. But then it, uh, kinda went completely fucking pear-shaped and—well, there was no other way, so—so…”

He frowns, tilting his head like the adorable puppy he is. “What happened?”

“I, um. Well. I guess you could say I kind of lost my head.”

“Did you do something rash?”

You told yourself ages ago that you’d never be this guy, and yet here you are, blushing furiously, scratching at the back of your neck. 

“I guess you could say that.”

“Well, what happened?”

“I—” You sigh. “I had to get decapitated again. Heroic and all. I mean, I’m fine, obviously. But. I was headless again.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better about dying, I was shot about fifty times with a machine gun.”

“What? No—jeez, Jake, are you okay?”

“Of course! Jane had me back together in a jiffy and I managed to get the drop on all those Felt fellows. Hee hee. ‘Felt fellows.’”

You fail to suppress a chuckle. 

“Hey, uh, listen, there was something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Sure, old pal, what do you need?”

You should be the Prince of Apologies. Except you don’t think you’re really all that great at them.

“Sorry. Um. For… basically everything I ever did involving you. Programming that robot to be a little too forward. Generally being a dick. Sending you my own severed head and basically forcing you to make out with it. Making you go out with me and not really listening to your input. Breaking up with you while we were all majorly high. Um. Generally being a dick.”

At some point you closed your eyes. You open them to see that his face is soft and his expression forgiving.

“We all did things we regret in the game, Dirk. And we were younger then. Not to mention, I’ve done a few things I’d really rather not think about. That whole trickster debacle, for one. So I’m sorry too.”

“I really don’t think—”

“Oh, hush, I know you’re thinking about how you’re ‘The Worst’ and all that. But I forgive you and I’m sorry too. Okay?”

You nod dumbly.

“How’s about we just sort of… start over, yeah? Hi, I’m Jake, and I’ll probably change out of this outfit as soon as I can. And you?”

You snicker. “I’m Dirk, and I dunno, the puffy asshole pants have grown on me. Not to mention the tiara. But whatever.”

John has a dramatic hug moment with Jane’s father that doesn’t make complete sense to you, and then the Forge is lit and before you know it, you finally have a true new beginning stretched out before you. 

You have no plans for the future. You’ve cleared your past. All that’s left is the present, and for right now, you’re okay with that.


End file.
